4DX Ventures and Flutterwave back Francophone Africa’s CinetPay in $2.4M round – TechCrunch

CinetPayThe payment gateway, which allows e-merchants and merchants to accept mobile money and other forms of payment in Francophone Africa, has secured $ 2.4 million in seed funding.

Pan African Venture Capital Fund 4DX Ventures and Unicorn Flutterwave are round investors, which means two specific markers in the pair. CinetPay is the first investment in the Francophone region.

CinetPay Founded by Idriss Monthe and Daniel Dindji In 2016, after CEO Monthe had problems collecting payments at its former startup, CinematCore, a site that specializes in selling online domain names.

“When I launched a website to sell my domain name online, after creating many PayPal accounts, it became difficult to collect online payments. Blocked by “PayPal because we were in Africa,” the CEO told TechCrunch.

“But the cost we bear is that in Francophone Africa 80% of the population has a mobile money account, and 10-20% have a bank account and a credit card. Decided to explore the realm of mobile money and create a payment gateway. totalling All mobile money available on Francophone Africa to allow merchants to accept online payments. “

Ivorian’s startup will serve as an online and point-of-sale payment solution for processing payments from more than 130 different payment operators (mobile money, bank cards, wallets) in nine French-speaking African countries. Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Congo, Guinea, Benin..

On the platform, merchants need to open an account, upload KYC, integrate Cinemat’s API, and start collecting payments... Each merchant pays a $ 20 annual subscription fee and Cinemat collects 1-1.5% commissions on every transaction made...

Merchants on the platform range from e-commerce platforms and digital public services to insurance companies and schools.Since then Inception, Over 12,000 merchants are registered on the platform. However, Monthe admits that only 400 of them are active. Asked why the company’s retention rate is low, he said the most active merchants have opened several accounts in the past and then stuck to one...

The number of CinetPay may also reflect the presence of larger payment gateways such as MFS Africa and PawaPay targeting 562 million registered mobile money accounts in sub-Saharan Africa.

Still, the company is doing well on its own. To date, we have processed over 30 million transactions for these 400 active merchants and processed approximately $ 12.5 million transactions each month.

“We have been tracking the Francophone Africa market for some time, be moved “Cinet Pay’s ambitious goal of digitizing payments across the region,” said Walter Baddoo, co-founder and general partner of 4DX Ventures. “We look forward to partnering with the Cinemat Pay team with long-time portfolio company Flutterwave to usher in the next phase of digital payments across the Francophone region.”

Flutterwave’s involvement in the round is a continuation of the Unicorn partnership with CinematPay, which began in 2019, the two companies said in a statement. It is also a diversification from the mobile money movement, which Flutterwave has recently partnered with MTN to allow businesses in some countries to receive MTN mobile money (MoMo) via gateways.

Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola said investing in CinematPay is an example of the duo’s common vision of “simplifying payments on the continent”.

CinetPay said seed investments provide an opportunity to step up sales and marketing efforts across markets in West Africa and Central Africa.

Monthe is despite the size of the company Relatively Smaller than its competitors, it stands out from other players due to its geographical presence, technology, and mission to “simplify payments and make them accessible through all channels.” FinallyThe plan will be the most important payment gateway in the next four years.

“Our vision is to be the first payment aggregator at Francophone Africa by 2025. in terms of It is geographically located in 15 countries of Francophone in Africa.beginning in terms of Innovation, first in terms of “Market share,” he said in a spectacular way.